Tuesday February 25th

Consumer Confidence

-Fell to 78.1 from 79.4

-Concerns about near term outlook for business conditions and jobs led to decrease

-Consumers don’t see considerable momentum in economy in coming months

-Consumer confidence is an indicator of consumer spending which accounts for 70% of economic activity

Wednesday February 26th

New Home Sales

-Rose 9.6% to an annual rate of 468,000 after a 4% drop in December

-highest in 5 1/2 years

-Need to see a rebound in housing market index and existing home sales to be confident that home sales recovery is on track

Thursday February 27th

Initial Jobless Claims

-Unexpectedly rose

-increased 14,000 to 348,000

-This increase probably does not signal labor market weakness because claims tend to be volatile around federal holidays

Durable Goods Orders

-fell 1% which was driven by a 20.2% decline in demand for commercial aircraft and a 5.6% drop for all transportation related equipment

-Autos and machine orders also fell

-key category that reflects business investment rebounded on demand for electronics and fabricated metals

-core capital goods rose 1.7% which excludes volatile transportation and defense orders

-Durable goods are tracked to determine if business investment is expanding or not

Friday February 28th

GDP

-expanded by 2.4% down from 3.2% last month and 4.1% in the 3rd quarter

-reported factors that contributed to slowdown are cold winter, 16 day gov’t shutdown,  expiration of long term unemployment benefits, and businesses placing fewer orders with manufacturers as they work through a pile of unsold goods in their warehouses

GDP Deflator

-up 1.6% to 107.2

-accounts for inflation = has some advantage over CPI because it isn’t based on a fixed basket of goods and service

-shows how much change in GDP relies upon changes in price levels

-simply put it measures inflation